The Malay Archipelago Volume 1
by
by Alfred Russell Wallace
Part 5 out of 6
And here I might (if I followed the example of most travellers)
launch out into a glowing description of the charms of these
damsels, the elegant costumes they wore, and the gold and silver
ornaments with which they were adorned. The jacket or body of
purple gauze would figure well in such a description, allowing
the heaving bosom to be seen beneath it, while "sparkling eyes,"
and "jetty tresses," and "tiny feet" might be thrown in
profusely. But, alas! regard for truth will not permit me to
expatiate too admiringly on such topics, determined as I am to
give as far as I can a true picture of the people and places I
visit. The princesses were, it is true, sufficiently good-
looking, yet neither their persons nor their garments had that
appearance of freshness and cleanliness without which no other
charms can be contemplated with pleasure. Everything had a dingy
and faded appearance, very disagreeable and unroyal to a European
eye. The only thing that excited some degree of admiration was
the quiet and dignified manner of the Rajah and the great respect
always paid to him. None can stand erect in his presence, and
when he sits on a chair, all present (Europeans of course
excepted) squat upon the ground. The highest seat is literally,
with these people, the place of honour and the sign of rank. So
unbending are the rules in this respect, that when an English
carriage which the Rajah of Lombock bad sent for arrived, it was
found impossible to use it because the driver's seat was the
highest, and it had to be kept as a show in its coach house. On
being told the object of my visit, the Rajah at once said that he
would order a house to be emptied for me, which would be much
better than building one, as that would take a good deal of time.
Bad coffee and sweetmeats were given us as before.
Two days afterwards, I called on the Rajah to ask him to send a
guide with me to show me the house I was to occupy. He
immediately ordered a man to be sent for, gave him instructions,
and in a few minutes we were on our way. My conductor could speak
no Malay, so we walked on in silence for an hour, when we turned
into a pretty good house and I was asked to sit down. The head
man of the district lived here, and in about half an hour we
started again, and another hour's walk brought us to the village
where I was to be lodged. We went to the residence of the
village chief, who conversed with my conductor for some time.
Getting tired, I asked to be shown the house that was prepared
for me, but the only reply I could get was, "Wait a little," and
the parties went on talking as before. So I told them I could not
wait, as I wanted to see the house and then to go shooting in the
forest. This seemed to puzzle them, and at length, in answer to
questions, very poorly explained by one or two bystanders who
knew a little Malay, it came out that no house was ready, and no
one seemed to have the least idea where to get one. As I did not
want to trouble the Rajah any more, I thought it best to try to
frighten them a little; so I told them that if they did not
immediately find me a house as the Rajah had ordered, I should go
back and complain to him, but that if a house was found me I
would pay for the use of it. This had the desired effect, and one
of the head men of the village asked me to go with him and look
for a house. He showed me one or two of the most miserable and
ruinous description, which I at once rejected, saying, "I must
have a good one, and near to the forest." The next he showed me
suited very well, so I told him to see that it was emptied the
next day, for that the day after I should come and occupy it.
On the day mentioned, as I was not quite ready to go, I sent my
two Macassar boys with brooms to sweep out the house thoroughly.
They returned in the evening and told me that when they got
there the house was inhabited, and not a single article removed.
However, on hearing they had come to clean and take possession,
the occupants made a move, but with a good deal of grumbling,
which made me feel rather uneasy as to how the people generally
might take my intrusion into their village. The next morning we
took our baggage on three packhorses, and, after a few break-
downs, arrived about noon at our destination.
After getting all my things set straight, and having made a hasty
meal, I determined if possible to make friends with the people. I
therefore sent for the owner of the house and as many of his
acquaintances as liked to come, to have a "bitchara," or talk.
When they were all seated, I gave them a little tobacco all
around, and having my boy Baderoon for interpreter, tried to
explain to them why I came there; that I was very sorry to turn
them out of the house, but that the Rajah had ordered it rather
than build a new one, which was what I had asked for, and then
placed five silver rupees in the owner's hand as one month's
rent. I then assured them that my being there would be a benefit
to them, as I should buy their eggs and fowls and fruit; and if
their children would bring me shells and insects, of which I
showed them specimens, they also might earn a good many coppers.
After all this had been fully explained to them, with a long talk
and discussion between every sentence, I could see that I had
made a favourable impression; and that very afternoon, as if to
test my promise to buy even miserable little snail-shells, a
dozen children came one after another, bringing me a few
specimens each of a small Helix, for which they duly received
"coppers," and went away amazed but rejoicing.
A few days' exploration made me well acquainted with the
surrounding country. I was a long way from the road in the forest
which I had first visited, and for some distance around my house
were old clearings and cottages. I found a few good butterflies,
but beetles were very scarce, and even rotten timber and newly-
felled trees (generally so productive) here produced scarcely
anything. This convinced me that there was not a sufficient
extent of forest in the neighbourhood to make the place worth
staying at long, but it was too late now to think of going
further, as in about a month the wet season would begin; so I
resolved to stay here and get what was to be had. Unfortunately,
after a few days I became ill with a low fever which produced
excessive lassitude and disinclination to all exertion. In vain I
endeavoured to shake it off; all I could do was to stroll quietly
each day for an hour about the gardens near, and to the well,
where some good insects were occasionally to be found; and the
rest of the day to wait quietly at home, and receive what beetles
and shells my little corps of collectors brought me daily. I
imputed my illness chiefly to the water, which was procured
from shallow wells, around which there was almost always a
stagnant puddle in which the buffaloes wallowed. Close to my
house was an enclosed mudhole where three buffaloes were shut up
every night, and the effluvia from which freely entered through
the open bamboo floor. My Malay boy Ali was affected with the
same illness, and as he was my chief bird-skinner I got on but
slowly with my collections.
The occupations and mode of life of the villagers differed but
little from those of all other Malay races. The time of the women
was almost wholly occupied in pounding and cleaning rice for
daily use, in bringing home firewood and water, and in cleaning,
dyeing, spinning, and weaving the native cotton into sarongs. The
weaving is done in the simplest kind of frame stretched on the
floor; and is a very slow and tedious process. To form the
checked pattern in common use, each patch of coloured threads has
to be pulled up separately by hand and the shuttle passed between
them; so that about an inch a day is the usual progress in stuff
a yard and a half wide. The men cultivate a little sirih (the
pungent pepper leaf used for chewing with betel-nut) and a few
vegetables; and once a year rudely plough a small patch of ground
with their buffaloes and plant rice, which then requires little
attention until harvest time. Now and then they have to see to the
repairs of their houses, and make mats, baskets, or other
domestic utensils, but a large part of their time is passed in
idleness.
Not a single person in the village could speak more than a few
words of Malay, and hardly any of the people appeared to have
seen a European before. One most disagreeable result of this was
that I excited terror alike in man and beast. Wherever I went,
dogs barked, children screamed, women ran away, and men stared as
though I were some strange and terrible cannibal or monster. Even
the pack-horses on the roads and paths would start aside when I
appeared and rush into the jungle; and as to those horrid, ugly
brutes, the buffaloes, they could never be approached by me; not
for fear of my own but of others' safety. They would first stick
out their necks and stare at me, and then on a nearer view break
loose from their halters or tethers, and rush away helter-skelter
as if a demon were after them, without any regard for what
might be in their way. Whenever I met buffaloes carrying packs
along a pathway, or being driven home to the village, I had to
turn aside into the jungle and hide myself until they had passed,
to avoid a catastrophe which would increase the dislike with
which I was already regarded. Everyday about noon the buffaloes
were brought into the villa, and were tethered in the shade
around the houses; and then I had to creep about like a thief by
backways, for no one could tell what mischief they might do to
children and houses were I to walk among them. If I came suddenly
upon a well where women were drawing water or children bathing, a
sudden flight was the certain result; which things occurring day
after day, were very unpleasant to a person who does not like to
be disliked, and who had never been accustomed to be treated as
an ogre.
About the middle of November, finding my health no better, and
insects, birds, and shells all very scarce, I determined to
return to Mamajam, and pack up my collections before the heavy
rains commenced. The wind bad already begun to blow from the
west, and many signs indicated that the rainy season might set in
earlier than usual; and then everything becomes very damp, and
it is almost impossible to dry collections properly. My kind
friend Mr. Mesman again lent me his pack-horses, and with the
assistance of a few men to carry my birds and insects, which I
did not like to trust on horses' backs, we got everything home
safe. Few can imagine the luxury it was to stretch myself on a
sofa, and to take my supper comfortably at table seated in my
easy bamboo chair, after having for five weeks taken all my meals
uncomfortably on the floor. Such things are trifles in health,
but when the body is weakened by disease the habits of a lifetime
cannot be so easily set aside.
My house, like all bamboo structures in this country, was a
leaning one, the strong westerly winds of the wet season having
set all its posts out of the perpendicular to such a degree as
to make me think it might someday possibly go over altogether.
It is a remarkable thing that the natives of Celebes have not
discovered the use of diagonal struts in strengthening buildings.
I doubt if there is a native house in the country two years old
and at all exposed to the wind, which stands upright; and no
wonder, as they merely consist of posts and joists all placed
upright or horizontal, and fastened rudely together with rattans.
They may be seen in every stage of the process of tumbling down,
from the first slight inclination, to such a dangerous slope that
it becomes a notice to quit to the occupiers.
The mechanical geniuses of the country have only discovered two
ways of remedying the evil. One is, after it has commenced, to
tie the house to a post in the ground on the windward side by a
rattan or bamboo cable. The other is a preventive, but how they
ever found it out and did not discover the true way is a mystery.
This plan is, to build the house in the usual way, but instead of
having all the principal supports of straight posts, to have two
or three of them chosen as crooked as possible. I had often
noticed these crooked posts in houses, but imputed it to the
scarcity of good, straight timber, until one day I met some men
carrying home a post shaped something like a dog's hind leg, and
inquired of my native boy what they were going to do with such a
piece of wood. "To make a post for a house," said he. "But why
don't they get a straight one, there are plenty here?" said I.
"Oh," replied he, "they prefer some like that in a house, because
then it won't fall," evidently imputing the effect to some occult
property of crooked timber. A little consideration and a diagram.
will, however, show, that the effect imputed to the crooked post
may be really produced by it. A true square changes its figure
readily into a rhomboid or oblique figure, but when one or two of
the uprights are bent or sloping, and placed so as to oppose each
other, the effect of a strut is produced, though in a rude and
clumsy manner.
Just before I had left Mamajam the people had sown a considerable
quantity of maize, which appears above ground in two or three
days, and in favourable seasons ripens in less than two months.
Owing to a week's premature rains the ground was all flooded when
I returned, and the plants just coming into ear were yellow and
dead. Not a grain would be obtained by the whole village, but
luckily it is only a luxury, not a necessity of life. The rain
was the signal for ploughing to begin, in order to sow rice on
all the flat lands between us and the town. The plough used is a
rude wooden instrument with a very short single handle, a
tolerably well-shaped coulter, and the point formed of a piece of
hard palm-wood fastened in with wedges. One or two buffaloes draw
it at a very slow pace. The seed is sown broadcast, and a rude
wooden harrow is used to smooth the surface.
By the beginning of December the regular wet season had set in.
Westerly winds and driving rains sometimes continued for days
together; the fields for miles around were under water, and the
ducks and buffaloes enjoyed themselves amazingly. All along the
road to Macassar, ploughing was daily going on in the mud and
water, through which the wooden plough easily makes its way, the
ploughman holding the plough-handle with one hand while a long
bamboo in the other serves to guide the buffaloes. These animals
require an immense deal of driving to get them on at all; a
continual shower of exclamations is kept up at them, and "Oh! ah!
Gee! ugh!" are to be heard in various keys and in an uninterrupted
succession all day long. At night we were favoured with a different
kind of concert. The dry ground around my house had become a marsh
tenanted by frogs, who kept up a most incredible noise from dusk to
dawn. They were somewhat musical too, having a deep vibrating note
which at times closely resembles the tuning of two or three bass-viols
in an orchestra. In Malacca and Borneo I had heard no such sounds as
these, which indicates that the frogs, like most of the animals of
Celebes, are of species peculiar to it.
My kind friend and landlord, Mr. Mesman, was a good specimen of
the Macassar-born Dutchman. He was about thirty-five years of
age, had a large family, and lived in a spacious house near the
town, situated in the midst of a grove of fruit trees, and
surrounded by a perfect labyrinth of offices, stables, and native
cottages occupied by his numerous servants, slaves, or
dependants. He usually rose before the sun, and after a cup of
coffee looked after his servants, horses, and dogs, until seven,
when a substantial breakfast of rice and meat was ready in a cool
verandah. Putting on a clean white linen suit, he then (trove to
town in his buggy, where he had an office, with two or three
Chinese clerks who looked after his affairs. His business was
that of a coffee and opium merchant. He had a coffee estate at
Bontyne, and a small prau which traded to the Eastern islands
near New Guinea, for mother-of-pearl and tortoiseshell. About one
he would return home, have coffee and cake or fried plantain,
first changing his dress for a coloured cotton shirt and trousers
and bare feet, and then take a siesta with a book. About four,
after a cup of tea, he would walk round his premises, and
generally stroll down to Mamajam to pay me a visit, and look
after his farm.
This consisted of a coffee plantation and an orchard of fruit
trees, a dozen horses and a score of cattle, with a small village
of Timorese slaves and Macassar servants. One family looked after
the cattle and supplied the house with milk, bringing me also a
large glassful every morning, one of my greatest luxuries. Others
had charge of the horses, which were brought in every afternoon
and fed with cut grass. Others had to cut grass for their
master's horses at Macassar--not a very easy task in the dry
season, when all the country looks like baked mud; or in the
rainy season, when miles in every direction are flooded. How they
managed it was a mystery to me, but they know grass must be had,
and they get it. One lame woman had charge of a flock of ducks.
Twice a day she took them out to feed in the marshy places, let
them waddle and gobble for an hour or two, and then drove them
back and shut them up in a small dark shed to digest their meal,
whence they gave forth occasionally a melancholy quack. Every
night a watch was set, principally for the sake of the horses--
the people of Goa, only two miles off, being notorious thieves,
and horses offering the easiest and most valuable spoil. This
enabled me to sleep in security, although many people in Macassar
thought I was running a great risk, living alone in such a
solitary place and with such bad neighbours.
My house was surrounded by a kind of straggling hedge of roses,
jessamines, and other flowers, and every morning one of the women
gathered a basketful of the blossoms for Mr. Mesman's family. I
generally took a couple for my own breakfast table, and the
supply never failed during my stay, and I suppose never does.
Almost every Sunday Mr. M. made a shooting excursion with his
eldest son, a lad of fifteen, and I generally accompanied him;
for though the Dutch are Protestants, they do not observe Sunday
in the rigid manner practised in England and English colonies.
The Governor of the place has his public reception every Sunday
evening, when card-playing is the regular amusement.
On December 13th I went on board a prau bound for the Aru
Islands, a journey which will be described in the latter part of
this work.
On my return, after a seven months' absence, I visited another
district to the north of Macassar, which will form the subject of
the next chapter.
CHAPTER XVI.
CELEBES.
(MACASSAR. JULY TO NOVEMBER, 1857.)
I REACHED Macassar again on the 11th of July, and established
myself in my old quarters at Mamajam, to sort, arrange, clean,
and pack up my Aru collections. This occupied me a month; and
having shipped them off for Singapore, had my guns repaired, and
received a new one from England, together with a stock of pins,
arsenic, and other collecting requisites. I began to feel eager
for work again, and had to consider where I should spend my time
until the end of the year; I had left Macassar seven months
before, a flooded marsh being ploughed up for the rice-sowing.
The rains had continued for five months, yet now all the rice was
cut, and dry and dusty stubble covered the country just as when
I had first arrived there.
After much inquiry I determined to visit the district of Maros,
about thirty miles north of Macassar, where Mr. Jacob Mesman, a
brother of my friend, resided, who had kindly offered to find me
house-room and give me assistance should I feel inclined to visit
him. I accordingly obtained a pass from the Resident, and having
hired a boat set off one evening for Maros. My boy Ali was so ill
with fever that I was obliged to leave him in the hospital, under
the care of my friend the German doctor, and I had to make shift
with two new servants utterly ignorant of everything. We coasted
along during the night, and at daybreak entered the Maros river,
and by three in the afternoon reached the village. I immediately
visited the Assistant Resident, and applied for ten men to carry
my baggage, and a horse for myself. These were promised to be
ready that night, so that I could start as soon as I liked in the
morning. After having taken a cup of tea I took my leave, and
slept in the boat. Some of the men came at night as promised, but
others did not arrive until the next morning. It took some time to
divide my baggage fairly among them, as they all wanted to shirk
the heavy boxes, and would seize hold of some light article and
march off with it, until made to come back and wait until the whole
had been fairly apportioned. At length about eight o'clock all
was arranged, and we started for our walk to Mr. M.'s farm.
The country was at first a uniform plain of burned-up rice-
grounds, but at a few miles' distance precipitous hills appeared,
backed by the lofty central range of the peninsula. Towards these
our path lay, and after having gone six or eight miles the hills
began to advance into the plain right and left of us, and the
ground became pierced here and there with blocks and pillars of
limestone rock, while a few abrupt conical hills and peaks rose
like islands. Passing over an elevated tract forming the
shoulder of one of the hills, a picturesque scene lay before us.
We looked down into a little valley almost entirely surrounded by
mountains, rising abruptly in huge precipices, and forming a
succession of knolls and peaks aid domes of the most varied and
fantastic shapes. In the very centre of the valley was a large
bamboo house, while scattered around were a dozen cottages of
the same material.
I was kindly received by Mr. Jacob Mesman in an airy saloon
detached from the house, and entirely built of bamboo and
thatched with grass. After breakfast he took me to his foreman's
house, about a hundred yards off, half of which was given up to
me until I should decide where to have a cottage built for my own
use. I soon found that this spot was too much exposed to the wind
and dust, which rendered it very difficult to work with papers or
insects. It was also dreadfully hot in the afternoon, and after a
few days I got a sharp attack of fever, which determined me to
move. I accordingly fixed on a place about a mile off, at the
foot of a forest-covered hill, where in a few days Mr. M. built
for me a nice little house, consisting of a good-sized enclosed
verandah or open room, and a small inner sleeping-room, with a
little cookhouse outside. As soon as it was finished I moved into
it, and found the change most agreeable.
The forest which surrounded me was open and free from underwood,
consisting of large trees, widely scattered with a great quantity
of palm-trees (Arenga saccharifera), from which palm wine and
sugar are made. There were also great numbers of a wild Jack-
fruit tree (Artocarpus), which bore abundance of large
reticulated fruit, serving as an excellent vegetable. The ground
was as thickly covered with dry leaves as it is in an English
wood in November; the little rocky streams were all dry, and
scarcely a drop of water or even a damp place was anywhere to be
seen. About fifty yards below my house, at the foot of the hill,
was a deep hole in a watercourse where good water was to be had,
and where I went daily to bathe by having buckets of water taken
out and pouring it over my body.
My host Mr. M. enjoyed a thoroughly country life, depending
almost entirely on his gun and dogs to supply his table. Wild
pigs of large size were very plentiful and he generally got one
or two a week, besides deer occasionally, and abundance of
jungle-fowl, hornbills, and great fruit pigeons. His buffaloes
supplied plenty of milk from which he made his own butter; he
grew his own rice and coffee, and had ducks, fowls, and their
eggs, in profusion. His palm-trees supplied him all the year round
with "sagueir," which takes the place of beer; and the sugar made
from them is an excellent sweetmeat. All the fine tropical
vegetables and fruits were abundant in their season, and his
cigars were made from tobacco of his own raising. He kindly sent
me a bamboo of buffalo-milk every morning; it was as thick as
cream, and required diluting with water to keep it fluid during
the day. It mixes very well with tea and coffee, although it has
a slight peculiar flavour, which after a time is not
disagreeable. I also got as much sweet "sagueir "as I liked to
drink, and Mr. M. always sent me a piece of each pig he killed,
which with fowls, eggs, and the birds we shot ourselves, and
buffalo beef about once a fortnight, kept my larder sufficiently
well supplied.
Every bit of flatland was cleared and used as rice-fields, and
on the lower slopes of many of the hills tobacco and vegetables
were grown. Most of the slopes are covered with huge blocks of
rock, very fatiguing to scramble over, while a number of the
hills are so precipitous as to be quite inaccessible. These
circumstances, combined with the excessive drought, were very
unfavourable for lily pursuits. Birds were scarce, and I got but
few new to me. Insects were tolerably plentiful, but unequal.
Beetles, usually so numerous and interesting, were exceedingly
scarce, some of the families being quite absent and others only
represented by very minute species. The Flies and Bees, on the
other hand, were abundant, and of these I daily obtained new and
interesting species. The rare and beautiful Butterflies of
Celebes were the chief object of my search, and I found many
species altogether new to me, but they were generally so active
and shy as to render their capture a matter of great difficulty.
Almost the only good place for them was in the dry beds of the
streams in the forest, where, at damp places, muddy pools, or
even on the dry rocks, all sorts of insects could be found. In
these rocky forests dwell some of the finest butterflies in the
world. Three species of Ornithoptera, measuring seven or eight
inches across the wings, and beautifully marked with spots or
masses of satiny yellow on a black ground, wheel through the
thickets with a strong sailing flight. About the damp places are
swarms of the beautiful blue-banded Papilios, miletus and
telephus, the superb golden green P. macedon, and the rare little
swallow-tail Papilio rhesus, of all of which, though very active,
I succeeded in capturing fine series of specimens.
I have rarely enjoyed myself more than during my residence here.
As I sat taking my coffee at six in the morning, rare birds would
often be seen on some tree close by, when I would hastily sally
out in my slippers, and perhaps secure a prize I had been
seeking after for weeks. The great hornbills of Celebes (Buceros
cassidix) would often come with loud-flapping wings, and perch
upon a lofty tree just in front of me; and the black baboon-
monkeys, Cynopithecus nigrescens, often stared down in
astonishment at such an intrusion into their domains while at
night herds of wild pigs roamed about the house, devouring
refuse, and obliging us to put away everything eatable or
breakable from our little cooking-house. A few minutes' search on
the fallen trees around my house at sunrise and sunset, would
often produce me more beetles than I would meet with in a day's
collecting, and odd moments could be made valuable which when
living in villages or at a distance from the forest are
inevitably wasted. Where the sugar-palms were dripping with sap,
flies congregated in immense numbers, and it was by spending half
an hour at these when I had the time to spare, that I obtained
the finest and most remarkable collection of this group of
insects that I have ever made.
Then what delightful hours I passed wandering up and down the dry
river-courses, full of water-holes and rocks and fallen trees,
and overshadowed by magnificent vegetation. I soon got to know
every hole and rock and stump, and came up to each with cautious
step and bated breath to see what treasures it would produce. At
one place I would find a little crowd of the rare butterfly
Tachyris zarinda, which would rise up at my approach, and display
their vivid orange and cinnabar-red wings, while among them would
flutter a few of the fine blue-banded Papilios. Where leafy
branches hung over the gully, I might expect to find a grand
Ornithoptera at rest and an easy prey. At certain rotten trunks I
was sure to get the curious little tiger beetle, Therates
flavilabris. In the denser thickets I would capture the small
metal-blue butterflies (Amblypodia) sitting on the leaves, as
well as some rare and beautiful leaf-beetles of the families
Hispidae and Chrysomelidae.
I found that the rotten jack-fruits were very attractive to many
beetles, and used to split them partly open and lay them about in
the forest near my house to rot. A morning's search at these
often produced me a score of species--Staphylinidae, Nitidulidae,
Onthophagi, and minute Carabidae, being the most abundant. Now
and then the "sagueir" makers brought me a fine rosechafer
(Sternoplus schaumii) which they found licking up the sweet sap.
Almost the only new birds I met with for some time were a
handsome ground thrush (Pitta celebensis), and a beautiful
violet-crowned dove (Ptilonopus celebensis), both very similar to
birds I had recently obtained at Aru, but of distinct species.
About the latter part of September a heavy shower of rain fell,
admonishing us that we might soon expect wet weather, much to the
advantage of the baked-up country. I therefore determined to pay
a visit to the falls of the Maros river, situated at the point
where it issues from the mountains--a spot often visited by
travellers and considered very beautiful. Mr. M. lent me a horse,
and I obtained a guide from a neighbouring village; and taking
one of my men with me, we started at six in the morning, and
after a ride of two hours over the flat rice-fields skirting the
mountains which rose in grand precipices on our left, we readied
the river about half-way between Maros and the falls, and thence
had a good bridle-road to our destination, which we reached. in
another hour. The hills had closed in around us as we advanced;
and when we reached a ruinous shed which had been erected for the
accommodation of visitors, we found ourselves in a flat-bottomed
valley about a quarter of a mile wide, bounded by precipitous and
often overhanging limestone rocks. So far the ground had been
cultivated, but it now became covered with bushes and large
scattered trees.
As soon as my scanty baggage had arrived and was duly deposited
in the shed, I started off alone for the fall, which was about a
quarter of a mile further on. The river is here about twenty
yards wide, and issues from a chasm between two vertical walls of
limestone, over a rounded mass of basaltic rock about forty feet
high, forming two curves separated by a slight ledge. The water
spreads beautifully over this surface in a thin sheet of foam,
which curls and eddies in a succession of concentric cones until
it falls into a fine deep pool below. Close to the very edge of
the fall a narrow and very rugged path leads to the river above,
and thence continues close under the precipice along the water's
edge, or sometimes in the water, for a few hundred yards, after
which the rocks recede a little, and leave a wooded bank on one
side, along which the path is continued, until in about half a
mile, a second and smaller fall is reached. Here the river seems
to issue from a cavern, the rocks having fallen from above so as to
block up the channel and bar further progress. The fall itself
can only be reached by a path which ascends behind a huge slice
of rock which has partly fallen away from the mountain, leaving a
space two or three feet wide, but disclosing a dark chasm
descending into the bowels of the mountain, and which, having
visited several such, I had no great curiosity to explore.
Crossing the stream a little below the upper fall, the path
ascends a steep slope for about five hundred feet, and passing
through a gap enters a narrow valley, shut in by walls of rock
absolutely perpendicular and of great height. Half a mile further
this valley turns abruptly to the right, and becomes a mere rift
in the mountain. This extends another half mile, the walls
gradually approaching until they are only two feet apart, and the
bottom rising steeply to a pass which leads probably into another
valley, but which I had no time to explore. Returning to where
this rift had begun the main path turns up to the left in a sort
of gully, and reaches a summit over which a fine natural arch of
rock passes at a height of about fifty feet. Thence was a steep
descent through thick jungle with glimpses of precipices and
distant rocky mountains, probably leading into the main river
valley again. This was a most tempting region to explore, but
there were several reasons why I could go no further. I had no
guide, and no permission to enter the Bugis territories, and as
the rains might at any time set in, I might be prevented from
returning by the flooding of the river. I therefore devoted
myself during the short time of my visit to obtaining what
knowledge I could of the natural productions of the place.
The narrow chasms produced several fine insects quite new to me,
and one new bird, the curious Phlaegenas tristigmata, a large
ground pigeon with yellow breast and crown, and purple neck.
This rugged path is the highway from Maros to the Bugis country
beyond the mountains. During the rainy season it is quite impassable,
the river filling its bed and rushing between perpendicular
cliffs many hundred feet high. Even at the time of my visit it
was most precipitous and fatiguing, yet women and children came
over it daily, and men carrying heavy loads of palm sugar (of very
little value). It was along the path between the lower and the
upper falls, and about the margin of the upper pool, that I found
most insects. The large semi-transparent butterfly, Idea tondana,
flew lazily along by dozens, and it was here that I at length
obtained an insect which I had hoped but hardly expected to meet
with--the magnificent Papilio androcles, one of the largest and
rarest known swallow-tailed butterflies. During my four days'
stay at the falls, I was so fortunate as to obtain six good
specimens. As this beautiful creature flies, the long white tails
flicker like streamers, and when settled on the beach it carries
them raised upwards, as if to preserve them from injury. It is
scarce even here, as I did not see more than a dozen specimens in
all, and had to follow many of them up and down the river's bank
repeatedly before I succeeded in their capture. When the sun
shone hottest, about noon, the moist beach of the pool below the
upper fall presented a beautiful sight, being dotted with groups
of gay butterflies--orange, yellow, white, blue, and green--
which on being disturbed rose into the air by hundreds, forming
clouds of variegated colours.
Such gores, chasms, and precipices here abound,as I have nowhere
seen in the Archipelago. A sloping surface is scarcely anywhere
to be found, huge walls and rugged masses of rock terminating all
the mountains and enclosing the valleys. In many parts there are
vertical or even overhanging precipices five or six hundred feet
high, yet completely clothed with a tapestry of vegetation.
Ferns, Pandanaceae, shrubs, creepers, and even forest trees, are
mingled in an evergreen network, through the interstices of which
appears the white limestone rock or the dark holes and chasms
with which it abounds. These precipices are enabled to sustain
such an amount of vegetation by their peculiar structure. Their
surfaces are very irregular, broken into holes and fissures, with
ledges overhanging the mouths of gloomy caverns; but from each
projecting part have descended stalactites, often forming a wild
gothic tracery over the caves and receding hollows, and affording
an admirable support to the roots of the shrubs, trees, and
creepers, which luxuriate in the warm pure atmosphere and the
gentle moisture which constantly exudes from the rocks. In places
where the precipice offers smooth surfaces of solid rock, it
remains quite bare, or only stained with lichens, and dotted with
clumps of ferns that grow on the small ledges and in the minutest
crevices.
The reader who is familiar with tropical nature only through the
medium of books and botanical gardens will picture to himself in
such a spot many other natural beauties. He will think that I
have unaccountably forgotten to mention the brilliant flowers,
which, in gorgeous masses of crimson, gold or azure, must spangle
these verdant precipices, hang over the cascade, and adorn the
margin of the mountain stream. But what is the reality? In vain
did I gaze over these vast walls of verdure, among the pendant
creepers and bushy shrubs, all around the cascade on the river's
bank, or in the deep caverns and gloomy fissures--not one single
spot of bright colour could be seen, not one single tree or bush
or creeper bore a flower sufficiently conspicuous to form an
object in the landscape. In every direction the eye rested on
green foliage and mottled rock. There was infinite variety in the
colour and aspect of the foliage; there was grandeur in the rocky
masses and in the exuberant luxuriance of the vegetation; but
there was no brilliancy of colour, none of those bright flowers
and gorgeous masses of blossom so generally considered to be
everywhere present in the tropics. I have here given an accurate
sketch of a luxuriant tropical scene as noted down on the spot,
and its general characteristics as regards colour have been so
often repeated, both in South America and over many thousand
miles in the Eastern tropics, that I am driven to conclude that
it represents the general aspect of nature at the equatorial
(that is, the most tropical) parts of the tropical regions.
How is it then, that the descriptions of travellers generally give
a very different idea? and where, it may be asked, are the
glorious flowers that we know do exist in the tropics? These
questions can be easily answered. The fine tropical flowering-
plants cultivated in our hothouses have been culled from the
most varied regions, and therefore give a most erroneous idea of
their abundance in any one region. Many of them are very rare,
others extremely local, while a considerable number inhabit the
more arid regions of Africa and India, in which tropical
vegetation does not exhibit itself in its usual luxuriance. Fine
and varied foliage, rather than gay flowers, is more
characteristic of those parts where tropical vegetation attains
its highest development, and in such districts each kind of
flower seldom lasts in perfection more than a few weeks, or
sometimes a few days. In every locality a lengthened residence
will show an abundance of magnificent and gaily-blossomed plants,
but they have to be sought for, and are rarely at any one time or
place so abundant as to form a perceptible feature in the
landscape. But it has been the custom of travellers to describe
and group together all the fine plants they have met with during
a long journey, and thus produce the effect of a gay and flower-
painted landscape. They have rarely studied and described
individual scenes where vegetation was most luxuriant and
beautiful, and fairly stated what effect was produced in them by
flowers. I have done so frequently, and the result of these
examinations has convinced me that the bright colours of flowers
have a much greater influence on the general aspect of nature in
temperate than in tropical climates. During twelve years spent
amid the grandest tropical vegetation, I have seen nothing
comparable to the effect produced on our landscapes by gorse,
broom, heather, wild hyacinths, hawthorn, purple orchises, and
buttercups.
The geological structure of this part of Celebes is interesting.
The limestone mountains, though of great extent, seem to be
entirely superficial, resting on a basis of basalt which in some
places forms low rounded hills between the more precipitous
mountains. In the rocky beds of the streams basalt is almost
always found, and it is a step in this rock which forms the
cascade already described. From it the limestone precipices rise
abruptly; and in ascending the little stairway along the side of
the fall, you step two or three times from tpe of rock on to
the other--the limestone dry and rough, being worn by the water
and rains into sharp ridges and honeycombed holes--the basalt
moist, even, and worn smooth and slippery by the passage of bare-
footed pedestrians. The solubility of the limestone by rain-water
is well seen in the little blocks and peaks which rise thickly
through the soil of the alluvial plains as you approach the
mountains. They are all skittle-shaped, larger in the middle than
at the base, the greatest diameter occurring at the height to
which the country is flooded in the wet season, and thence
decreasing regularly to the ground. Many of them overhang
considerably, and some of the slenderer pillars appear to stand
upon a point. When the rock is less solid it becomes curiously
honeycombed by the rains of successive winters, and I noticed
some masses reduced to a complete network of stone through which
light could be seen in every direction.
From these mountains to the sea extends a perfectly flat alluvial
plain, with no indication that water would accumulate at a great
depth beneath it, yet the authorities at Macassar have spent much
money in boring a well a thousand feet deep in hope of getting a
supply of water like that obtained by the Artesian wells in the
London and Paris basins. It is not to be wondered at that the
attempt was unsuccessful.
Returning to my forest hut, I continued my daily search after
birds and insects. The weather, however, became dreadfully hot and
dry, every drop of water disappearing from the pools and rock-
holes, and with it the insects which frequented them. Only one
group remained unaffected by the intense drought; the Diptera, or
two-winged flies, continued as plentifully as ever, and on these I
was almost compelled to concentrate my attention for a week or
two, by which means I increased my collection of that Order to
about two hundred species. I also continued to obtain a few new
birds, among which were two or three kinds of small hawks and
falcons, a beautiful brush-tongued paroquet, Trichoglossus
ornatus, and a rare black and white crow, Corvus advena.
At length, about the middle of October, after several gloomy days,
down came a deluge of rain which continued to fall almost every
afternoon, showing that the early part of the wet season had
commenced. I hoped now to get a good harvest of insects, and in
some respects I was not disappointed. Beetles became much more
numerous, and under a thick bed of leaves that had accumulated on
some rocks by the side of a forest stream, I found an abundance
of Carbidae, a family generally scarce in the tropics. The
butterflies, however, disappeared. Two of my servants were attacked
with fever, dysentery, and swelled feet, just at the time that
the third had left me, and for some days they both lay groaning
in the house. When they got a little better I was attacked
myself, and as my stores were nearly finished and everything was
getting very damp, I was obliged to prepare for my return to
Macassar, especially as the strong westerly winds would render
the passage in a small open boat disagreeable, if not dangerous.
Since the rains began, numbers of huge millipedes, as thick as
one's finger and eight or ten inches long, crawled about
everywhere--in the paths, on trees, about the house--and one
morning when I got up I even found one in my bed! They were
generally of a dull lead colour or of a deep brick red, and were
very nasty-looking things to be coming everywhere in one's way,
although quite harmless. Snakes too began to show themselves. I
killed two of a very abundant species--big-headed, and of a bright
green colour, which lie coiled up on leaves and shrubs and can
scarcely be seen until one is close upon them. Brown snakes got
into my net while beating among dead leaves for insects, and made
me rather cautious about inserting my hand until I knew what kind
of game I had captured. The fields and meadows which had been
parched and sterile, now became suddenly covered with fine long
grass; the river-bed where I had so many times walked over
burning rocks, was now a deep and rapid stream; and numbers of
herbaceous plants and shrubs were everywhere springing up and
bursting into flower. I found plenty of new insects, and if I had
had a good, roomy, water-and-wind-proof house, I should perhaps
have stayed during the wet season, as I feel sure many things can
then be obtained which are to be found at no other time. With my
summer hut, however, this was impossible. During the heavy rains
a fine drizzly mist penetrated into every part of it, and I began
to have the greatest difficulty in keeping my specimens dry.
Early in November I returned to Macassar, and having packed up my
collections, started in the Dutch mail steamer for Amboyna and
Ternate. Leaving this part of my journey for the present, I will
in the next chapter conclude my account of Celebes, by describing
the extreme northern part of the island which I visited two years
later.
CHAPTER XVII.
CELEBES.
(MENADO. JUNE TO SEPTEMBER, 1859.)
IT was after my residence at Timor-Coupang that I visited the
northeastern extremity of Celebes, touching Banda, Amboyna, and
Ternate on my way. I reached Menado on the 10th of June, 1859,
and was very kindly received by Mr. Tower, an Englishman, but a
very old resident in Menado, where he carries on a general
business. He introduced me to Mr. L. Duivenboden (whose father
had been my friend at Ternate), who had much taste for natural
history; and to Mr. Neys, a native of Menado, but who was
educated at Calcutta, and to whom Dutch, English, and Malay were
equally mother-tongues. All these gentlemen showed me the
greatest kindness, accompanied me in my earliest walks about the
country, and assisted me by every means in their power. I spent a
week in the town very pleasantly, making explorations and
inquiries after a good collecting station, which I had much
difficulty in finding, owing to the wide cultivation of coffee
and cacao, which has led to the clearing away of the forests for
many miles around the town, and over extensive districts far into
the interior.
The little town of Menado is one of the prettiest in the East. It
has the appearance of a large garden containing rows of rustic
villas with broad paths between, forming streets generally at
right angles with each other. Good roads branch off in several
directions towards the interior, with a succession of pretty
cottages, neat gardens, and thriving plantations, interspersed
with wildernesses of fruit trees. To the west and south the
country is mountainous, with groups of fine volcanic peaks 6,000
or 7,000 feet high, forming grand and picturesque backgrounds to
the landscape.
The inhabitants of Minahasa (as this part of Celebes is called)
differ much from those of all the rest of the island, and in fact
from any other people in the Archipelago. They are of a light-
brown or yellow tint, often approaching the fairness of a
European; of a rather short stature, stout and well-made; of an
open and pleasing countenance, more or less disfigured as age
increases by projecting check-bones; and with the usual long,
straight, jet-black hair of the Malayan races. In some of the
inland villages where they may be supposed to be of the purest
race, both men and women are remarkably handsome; while nearer
the coasts where the purity of their blood has been destroyed by
the intermixture of other races, they approach to the ordinary
types of the wild inhabitants of the surrounding countries.
In mental and moral characteristics they are also highly
peculiar. They are remarkably quiet and gentle in disposition,
submissive to the authority of those they consider their
superiors, and easily induced to learn and adopt the habits of
civilized people. They are clever mechanics, and seem capable of
acquiring a considerable amount of intellectual education.
Up to a very recent period these people were thorough savages,
and there are persons now living in Menado who remember a state
of things identical with that described by the writers of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The inhabitants of the
several villages were distinct tribes, each under its own chief,
speaking languages unintelligible to each other, and almost
always at war. They built their houses elevated upon lofty posts
to defend themselves from the attacks of their enemies. They were
headhunters like the Dyaks of Borneo, and were said to be
sometimes cannibals. When a chief died, his tomb was adorned with
two fresh human heads; and if those of enemies could not be
obtained, slaves were killed for the occasion. Human skulls were
the great ornaments of the chiefs' houses. Strips of bark were
their only dress. The country was a pathless wilderness, with
small cultivated patches of rice and vegetables, or clumps of
fruit-trees, diversifying the otherwise unbroken forest. Their
religion was that naturally engendered in the undeveloped human
mind by the contemplation of grand natural phenomena and the
luxuriance of tropical nature. The burning mountain, the torrent
and the lake, were the abode of their deities; and certain trees
and birds were supposed to have special influence over men's
actions and destiny. They held wild and exciting festivals to
propitiate these deities or demons, and believed that men could
be changed by them into animals--either during life or after
death.
Here we have a picture of true savage life; of small isolated
communities at war with all around them, subject to the wants and
miseries of such a condition, drawing a precarious existence from
the luxuriant soil, and living on, from generation to generation,
with no desire for physical amelioration, and no prospect of
moral advancement.
Such was their condition down to the year 1822, when the coffee-
plant was first introduced, and experiments were made as to its
cultivation. It was found to succeed admirably from fifteen
hundred feet, up to four thousand feet above the sea. The chiefs of
villages were induced to undertake its cultivation. Seed and
native instructors were sent from Java; food was supplied to the
labourers engaged in clearing and planting; a fixed price was
established at which all coffee brought to the government
collectors was to be paid for, and the village chiefs who now
received the titles of "Majors" were to receive five percent of
the produce. After a time, roads were made from the port of
Menado up to the plateau, and smaller paths were cleared from
village to village; missionaries settled in the more populous
districts and opened schools; and Chinese traders penetrated to
the interior and supplied clothing and other luxuries in exchange
for the money which the sale of the coffee had produced.
At the same time, the country was divided into districts, and the
system of "Controlleurs," which had worked so well in Java, was
introduced. The "Controlleur "was a European, or a native of
European blood, who was the general superintendent of the
cultivation of the district, the adviser of the chiefs, the
protector of the people, and the means of communication between
both and the European Government. His duties obliged him to visit
every village in succession once a month, and to send in a
report on their condition to the Resident. As disputes between
adjacent villages were now settled by appeal to a superior
authority, the old and inconvenient semi-fortified houses were
disused, and under the direction of the "Controlleurs" most of
the houses were rebuilt on a neat and uniform plan. It was this
interesting district which I was now about to visit.
Having decided on my route, I started at 8 A.M. on the 22d of
June. Mr. Tower drove me the first three miles in his chaise, and
Mr. Neys accompanied me on horseback three miles further to the
village of Lotta. Here we met the Controlleur of the district of
Tondano, who was returning home from one of his monthly tours,
and who had agreed to act as my guide and companion on the
journey. From Lotta we had an almost continual ascent for six
miles, which brought us on to the plateau of Tondano at an
elevation of about 2,400 feet. We passed through three villages
whose neatness and beauty quite astonished me. The main road,
along which all the coffee is brought down from the interior in
carts drawn by buffaloes, is always turned aside at the entrance
of a village, so as to pass behind it, and thus allow the village
street itself to be kept neat and clean. This is bordered by neat
hedges often formed entirely of rose-trees, which are perpetually
in blossom. There is a broad central path and a border of fine
turf, which is kept well swept and neatly cut. The houses are all
of wood, raised about six feet on substantial posts neatly
painted blue, while the walls are whitewashed. They all have a
verandah enclosed with a neat balustrade, and are generally
surrounded by orange-trees and flowering shrubs. The surrounding
scenery is verdant and picturesque. Coffee plantations of extreme
luxuriance, noble palms and tree ferns, wooded hills and volcanic
peaks, everywhere meet the eye. I had heard much of the beauty of
this country, but the reality far surpassed my expectations.
About one o'clock we reached Tomohón, the chief place of a
district, having a native chief now called the "Major," at whose
house we were to dine. Here was a fresh surprise for me. The
house was large, airy and very substantially built of hard native
timber, squared and put together in a most workmanlike manner. It
was furnished in European style, with handsome chandelier lamps,
and the chairs and tables all well made by native workmen. As
soon as we entered, madeira and bitters were offered us. Then two
handsome boys neatly dressed in white, and with smoothly brushed
jet-black hair, handed us each a basin of water and a clean
napkin on a salver. The dinner was excellent. Fowls cooked in
various ways; wild pig roasted, stewed and fried; a fricassee of
bats, potatoes, rice and other vegetables; all served on good
china, with finger glasses and fine napkins, and abundance of
good claret and beer, seemed to me rather curious at the table of
a native chief on the mountains of Celebes. Our host was dressed
in a suit of black with patent-leather shoes, and really looked
comfortable and almost gentlemanly in them. He sat at the head of
the table and did the honours well, though he did not talk much.
Our conversation was entirely in Malay, as that is the official
language here, and in fact the mother-tongue and only language of
the Controlleur, who is a native-born half-breed. The Major's
father who was chief before him, wore, I was informed, a strip of
bark as his sole costume, and lived in a rude but raised home
on lofty poles, and abundantly decorated with human heads. Of course
we were expected, and our dinner was prepared in the best style, but
I was assured that the chiefs all take a pride in adopting
European customs, and in being able to receive their visitors in
a handsome manner.
After dinner and coffee, the Controlleur went on to Tondano, and
I strolled about the village waiting for my baggage, which was
coming in a bullock-cart, and did not arrive until after midnight.
Supper was very similar to dinner, and on retiring I found an
elegant little room with a comfortable bed, gauze curtains with
blue and red hangings, and every convenience. Next morning at
sunrise the thermometer in the verandah stood at 69°, which I was
told is about the usual lowest temperature at this place, 2,500
feet above the sea. I had a good breakfast of coffee, eggs, and
fresh bread and butter, which I took in the spacious verandah
amid the odour of roses, jessamine, and other sweet-scented
flowers, which filled the garden in front; and about eight
o'clock left Tomohón with a dozen men carrying my baggage.
Our road lay over a mountain ridge about 4,000 feet above the
sea, and then descended about 500 feet to the little village of
Rurúkan, the highest in the district of Minahasa, and probably in
all Celebes. Here I had determined to stay for some time to see
whether this elevation would produce any change in the zoology.
The village had only been formed about ten years, and was quite
as neat as those I had passed through, and much more picturesque.
It is placed on a small level spot, from which there is an abrupt
wooded descent down to the beautiful lake of Tondano, with
volcanic mountains beyond. On one side is a ravine, and beyond it
a fine mountainous and wooded country.
Near the village are the coffee plantations. The trees are
planted in rows, and are kept topped to about seven feet high.
This causes the lateral branches to grow very strong, so that
some of the trees become perfect hemispheres, loaded with fruit
from top to bottom, and producing from ten to twenty pounds each
of cleaned coffee annually. These plantations were all formed by
the Government, and are cultivated by the villagers under the
direction of their chief. Certain days are appointed for weeding
or gathering, and the whole working population are summoned by the
sound of a gong. An account is kept of the number of hours' work
done by each family, and at the year's end, the produce of the
sale is divided among them proportionately. The coffee is taken
to Government stores established at central places over the whole
country, and is paid for at a low fixed price. Out of this a
certain percentage goes to the chiefs and majors, and the
remainder is divided among the inhabitants. This system works
very well, and I believe is at present far better for the people
than free-trade would be. There are also large rice-fields, and
in this little village of seventy houses, I was informed that a
hundred pounds' worth of rice was sold annually.
I had a small house at the very end of the village, almost
hanging over the precipitous slope down to the stream, and with a
splendid view from the verandah. The thermometer in the morning
often stood at 62° and never rose so high as 80°, so that with
the thin clothing used in the tropical plains we were always cool
and sometimes positively cold, while the spout of water where I
went daily for my bath had quite an icy feel. Although I enjoyed
myself very much among these fine mountains and forests, I was
somewhat disappointed as to my collections. There was hardly any
perceptible difference between the animal life in this temperate
region and in the torrid plains below, and what difference did
exist was in most respects disadvantageous to me. There seemed to
be nothing absolutely peculiar to this elevation. Birds and
quadrupeds were less plentiful, but of the same species. In
insects there seemed to be more difference. The curious beetles
of the family Cleridae, which are found chiefly on bark and
rotten wood, were finer than I have seen them elsewhere. The
beautiful Longicorns were scarcer than usual, and the few
butterflies were all of tropical species. One of these, Papilio
blumei, of which I obtained a few specimens only, is among the
most magnificent I have ever seen. It is a green and gold
swallow-tail, with azure-blue and spoon-shaped tails, and was often
seen flying about the village when the sun shone, but in a very
shattered condition. The great amount of wet and cloudy weather
was a great drawback all the time I was at Rurukan.
Even in the vegetation there is very little to indicate
elevation. The trees are more covered with lichens and mosses,
and the ferns and tree-ferns are finer and more luxuriant than I
had been accustomed to seeing on the low grounds, both probably
attributable to the almost perpetual moisture that here prevails.
Abundance of a tasteless raspberry, with blue and yellow
composite, have somewhat of a temperate aspect; and minute ferns
and Orchideae, with dwarf Begonias on the rocks, make some
approach to a sub-alpine vegetation. The forest, however, is most
luxuriant. Noble palms, Pandani, and tree-ferns are abundant in
it, while the forest trees are completely festooned with
Orchideae, Bromeliae, Araceae, Lycopodiums, and mosses. The
ordinary stemless ferns abound; some with gigantic fronds ten or
twelve feet long, others barely an inch high; some with entire
and massive leaves, others elegantly waving their finely-cut
foliage, and adding endless variety and interest to the forest
paths. The cocoa-nut palm still produces fruit abundantly, but is
said to be deficient in oil. Oranges thrive better than below,
producing abundance of delicious fruit; but the shaddock or
pumplemous (Citrus decumana) requires the full force of a
tropical sun, for it will not thrive even at Tondano a thousand
feet lower. On the hilly slopes rice is cultivated largely, and
ripens well, although the temperature rarely or never rises to
80°, so that one would think it might be grown even in England in
fine summers, especially if the young plants were raised under
glass.
The mountains have an unusual quantity of earth and vegetable
mould spread over them. Even on the steepest slopes there is
everywhere a covering of clays and sands, and generally a good
thickness of vegetable soil. It is this which perhaps contributes
to the uniform luxuriance of the forest, and delays the
appearance of that sub-alpine vegetation which depends almost as
much on the abundance of rocky and exposed surfaces as on
difference of climate. At a much lower elevation on Mount Ophir
in Malacca, Dacrydiums and Rhododendrons with abundance of
Nepenthes, ferns, and terrestrial orchids suddenly took the place
of the lofty forest; but this was plainly due to the occurrence
of an extensive slope of bare, granitic rock at an elevation of
less than 3,000 feet. The quantity of vegetable soil, and also of
loose sands and clays, resting on steep slopes, hill-tops and the
sides of ravines, is a curious and important phenomenon. It may
be due in part to constant, slight earthquake shocks facilitating
the disintegration of rock; but, would also seem to indicate that
the country has been long exposed to gentle atmospheric action,
and that its elevation has been exceedingly slow and continuous.
During my stay at Rurukan, my curiosity was satisfied by
experiencing a pretty sharp earthquake-shock. On the evening of
June 29th, at a quarter after eight, as I was sitting reading,
the house began shaking with a very gentle, but rapidly
increasing motion. I sat still enjoying the novel sensation for
some seconds; but in less than half a minute it became strong
enough to shake me in my chair, and to make the house visibly
rock about, and creak and crack as if it would fall to pieces.
Then began a cry throughout the village of "Tana goyang! tana
goyang! "(Earthquake! earthquake!) Everybody rushed out of their
houses--women screamed and children cried--and I thought it
prudent to go out too. On getting up, I found my head giddy and
my steps unsteady, and could hardly walk without falling. The
shock continued about a minute, during which time I felt as if I
had been turned round and round, and was almost seasick. Going
into the house again, I found a lamp and a bottle of arrack
upset. The tumbler which formed the lamp had been thrown out of
the saucer in which it had stood. The shock appeared to be nearly
vertical, rapid, vibratory, and jerking. It was sufficient, I
have no doubt, to have thrown down brick, chimneys, walls, and
church towers; but as the houses here are all low, and strongly
framed of timber, it is impossible for them to be much injured,
except by a shock that would utterly destroy a European city. The
people told me it was ten years since they had had a stronger
shock than this, at which time many houses were thrown down and
some people killed.
At intervals of ten minutes to half an hour, slight shocks and
tremors were felt, sometimes strong enough to send us all out
again. There was a strange mixture of the terrible and the
ludicrous in our situation. We might at any moment have a much
stronger shock, which would bring down the house over us, or--
what I feared more--cause a landslip, and send us down into the
deep ravine on the very edge of which the village is built; yet I
could not help laughing each time we ran out at a slight shock,
and then in a few moments ran in again. The sublime and the
ridiculous were here literally but a step apart. On the one hand,
the most terrible and destructive of natural phenomena was in
action around us--the rocks, the mountains, the solid earth were
trembling and convulsed, and we were utterly impotent to guard
against the danger that might at any moment overwhelm us. On the
other hand was the spectacle of a number of men, women, and
children running in and out of their houses, on what each time
proved a very unnecessary alarm, as each shock ceased just as it
became strong enough to frighten us. It seemed really very much
like "playing at earthquakes," and made many of the people join
me in a hearty laugh, even while reminding each other that it
really might be no laughing matter.
At length the evening got very cold, and I became very sleepy,
and determined to turn in; leaving orders to my boys, who slept
nearer the door, to wake me in case the house was in danger of
falling. But I miscalculated my apathy, for I could not sleep
much. The shocks continued at intervals of half an hour or an
hour all night, just strong enough to wake me thoroughly each
time and keep me on the alert, ready to jump up in case of danger.
I was therefore very glad when morning came. Most of the
inhabitants had not been to bed at all, and some had stayed out
of doors all night. For the next two days and nights shocks still
continued at short intervals, and several times a day for a week,
showing that there was some very extensive disturbance beneath
our portion of the earth's crust. How vast the forces at work
really are can only be properly appreciated when, after feeling
their effects, we look abroad over the wide expanse of hill and
valley, plain and mountain, and thus realize in a slight degree
the immense mass of matter heaved and shaken. The sensation
produced by an earthquake is never to be forgotten. We feel
ourselves in the grasp of a power to which the wildest fury of
the winds and waves are as nothing; yet the effect is more a
thrill of awe than the terror which the more boisterous war of
the elements produces. There is a mystery and an uncertainty as
to the amount of danger we incur, which gives greater play to the
imagination, and to the influences of hope and fear. These
remarks apply only to a moderate earthquake. A severe one is the
most destructive and the most horrible catastrophe to which human
beings can be exposed.
A few days after the earthquake I took a walk to Tondano, a large
village of about 7,000 inhabitants, situated at the lower end of
the lake of the same name. I dined with the Controlleur, Mr.
Bensneider, who had been my guide to Tomohon. He had a fine large
house, in which he often received visitors; and his garden was
the best for flowers which I had seen in the tropics, although
there was no great variety. It was he who introduced the rose
hedges which give such a charming appearance to the villages; and
to him is chiefly due the general neatness and good order that
everywhere prevail. I consulted him about a fresh locality, as I
found Rurúkan too much in the clouds, dreadfully damp and gloomy,
and with a general stagnation of bird and insect life. He
recommended me a village some distance beyond the lake, near
which was a large forest, where he thought I should find plenty
of birds. As he was going himself in a few days, I decided to
accompany him.
After dinner I asked him for a guide to the celebrated waterfall
on the outlet stream of the lake. It is situated about a mile and
half below the village, where a slight rising ground closes in
the basin, and evidently once formed, the shore of the lake. Here
the river enters a gorge, very narrow and tortuous, along which it
rushes furiously for a short distance and then plunges into a
great chasm, forming the head of a large valley. Just above the
fall the channel is not more than ten feet wide, and here a few
planks are thrown across, whence, half hid by luxuriant
vegetation, the mad waters may be seen rushing beneath, and a few
feet farther plunge into the abyss. Both sight and sound are
grand and impressive. It was here that, four years before my
visit, the Governor-General of the Netherland Indies committed
suicide, by leaping into the torrent. This at least is the
general opinion, as he suffered from a painful disease which was
supposed to have made him weary of his life. His body was found
next day in the stream below.
Unfortunately, no good view of the fall could now be obtained,
owing to the quantity of wood and high grass that lined the
margins of the precipices. There are two falls, the lower being
the most lofty; and it is possible, by long circuit, to descend
into the valley and see them from below. Were the best points of
view searched for and rendered accessible, these falls would
probably be found to be the finest in the Archipelago. The chasm
seems to be of great depth, probably 500 or 600 feet. Unfortunately,
I had no time to explore this valley, as I was anxious to devote
every fine day to increasing my hitherto scanty collections.
Just opposite my abode in Rurukan was the schoolhouse. The
schoolmaster was a native, educated by the Missionary at Tomohón.
School was held every morning for about three hours, and twice a
week in the evening there was catechising and preaching. There
was also a service on Sunday morning. The children were all
taught in Malay, and I often heard them repeating the
multiplication-table, up to twenty times twenty, very glibly. They
always wound up with singing, and it was very pleasing to hear
many of our old psalm-tunes in these remote mountains, sung with
Malay words. Singing is one of the real blessings which
Missionaries introduce among savage nations, whose native chants
are almost always monotonous and melancholy.
On catechising evenings the schoolmaster was a great man,
preaching and teaching for three hours at a stretch much in the
style of an English ranter. This was pretty cold work for his
auditors, however warming to himself; and I am inclined to think
that these native teachers, having acquired facility of speaking
and an endless supply of religious platitudes to talk about, ride
their hobby rather hard, without much consideration for their
flock. The Missionaries, however, have much to be proud of in
this country. They have assisted the Government in changing a
savage into a civilized community in a wonderfully short space of
time. Forty years ago the country was a wilderness, the people
naked savages, garnishing their rude houses with human heads. Now
it is a garden, worthy of its sweet native name of "Minahasa."
Good roads and paths traverse it in every direction; some of the
finest coffee plantations in the world surround the villages,
interspersed with extensive rice-fields more than sufficient for
the support of the population.
The people are now the most industrious, peaceable, and civilized
in the whole Archipelago. They are the best clothed, the best
housed, the best fed, and the best educated; and they have made
some progress towards a higher social state. I believe there is
no example elsewhere of such striking results being produced in
so short a time--results which are entirely due to the system of
government now adopted by the Dutch in their Eastern possessions.
The system is one which may be called a "paternal despotism." Now
we Englishmen do not like despotism--we hate the name and the
thing, and we would rather see people ignorant, lazy, and
vicious, than use any but moral force to make them wise,
industrious, and good. And we are right when we are dealing with
men of our own race, and of similar ideas and equal capacities
with ourselves. Example and precept, the force of public opinion,
and the slow, but sure spread of education, will do every thing
in time, without engendering any of those bitter feelings, or
producing any of that servility, hypocrisy, and dependence, which
are the sure results of despotic government. But what should we
think of a man who should advocate these principles of perfect
freedom in a family or a school? We should say that he was
applying a good, general principle to a case in which the
conditions rendered it inapplicable--the case in which the
governed are in an admitted state of mental inferiority to those
who govern them, and are unable to decide what is best for their
permanent welfare. Children must be subjected to some degree of
authority, and guidance; and if properly managed they will
cheerfully submit to it, because they know their own inferiority,
and believe their elders are acting solely for their good. They
learn many things the use of which they cannot comprehend, and
which they would never learn without some moral and social, if not
physical, pressure. Habits of order, of industry, of cleanliness,
of respect and obedience, are inculcated by similar means.
Children would never grow up into well-behaved and well-educated
men, if the same absolute freedom of action that is allowed to
men were allowed to them. Ruder the best aspect of education,
children are subjected to a mild despotism for the good of
themselves and of society; and their confidence in the wisdom and
goodness of those who ordain and apply this despotism,
neutralizes the bad passions and degrading feelings, which under
less favourable conditions are its general results.
Now, there is not merely an analogy--there is in many respects
an identity of relation between master and pupil or parent and
child on the one hand, and an uncivilized race and its civilized
rulers on the other. We know (or think we know) that the
education and industry, and the common usages of civilized man,
are superior to those of savage life; and, as he becomes
acquainted with them, the savage himself admits this. He admires
the superior acquirements of the civilized man, and it is with
pride that he will adopt such usages as do not interfere too
much with his sloth, his passions, or his prejudices. But as the
willful child or the idle schoolboy, who was never taught
obedience, and never made to do anything which of his own free
will he was not inclined to do, would in most cases obtain
neither education nor manners; so it is much more unlikely that
the savage, with all the confirmed habits of manhood and the
traditional prejudices of race, should ever do more than copy a
few of the least beneficial customs of civilization, without some
stronger stimulus than precept, very imperfectly backed by
example.
If we are satisfied that we are right in assuming the government
over a savage race, and occupying their country, and if we
further consider it our duty to do what we can to improve our
rude subjects and raise them up towards our own level, we must
not be too much afraid of the cry of "despotism" and "slavery,"
but must use the authority we possess to induce them to do work
which they may not altogether like, but which we know to be an
indispensable step in their moral and physical advancement. The
Dutch have shown much good policy in the means by which they have
done this. They have in most cases upheld and strengthened the
authority of the native chiefs, to whom the people have been
accustomed to render a voluntary obedience; and by acting on the
intelligence and self-interest of these chiefs, have brought
about changes in the manners and customs of the people, which
would have excited ill-feeling and perhaps revolt, had they been
directly enforced by foreigners.
In carrying out such a system, much depends upon the character
of the people; and the system which succeeds admirably in one
place could only be very partially worked out in another. In
Minahasa the natural docility and intelligence of the race have
made their progress rapid; and how important this is, is well
illustrated by the fact, that in the immediate vicinity of the
town of Menado are a tribe called Banteks, of a much less
tractable disposition, who have hitherto resisted all efforts of
the Dutch Government to induce them to adopt any systematic
cultivation. These remain in a ruder condition, but engage
themselves willingly as occasional porters and labourers, for
which their greater strength and activity well adapt them.
No doubt the system here sketched seems open to serious
objection. It is to a certain extent despotic, and interferes
with free trade, free labour, and free communication. A native
cannot leave his village without a pass, and cannot engage
himself to any merchant or captain without a Government permit.
The coffee has all to be sold to Government, at less than half
the price that the local merchant would give for it, and he
consequently cries out loudly against "monopoly" and "oppression."
He forgets, how ever, that the coffee plantations were established
by the Government at great outlay of capital and skill; that it
gives free education to the people, and that the monopoly is in lieu
of taxation. He forgets that the product he wants to purchase and
make a profit by, is the creation of the Government, without whom
the people would still be savages. He knows very well that free
trade would, as its first result, lead to the importation of whole
cargoes of arrack, which would be carried over the country and
exchanged for coffee. That drunkenness and poverty would spread over
the land; that the public coffee plantations would not be kept up;
that the quality and quantity of the coffee would soon deteriorate;
that traders and merchants would get rich, but that the people would
relapse into poverty and barbarism. That such is invariably is the
result of free trade with any savage tribes who possess a valuable
product, native or cultivated, is well known to those who have
visited such people; but we might even anticipate from general
principles that evil results would happen.
If there is one thing rather than another to which the grand law
of continuity or development will apply, it is to human progress.
There are certain stages through which society must pass in its
onward march from barbarism to civilization. Now one of these stages
has always been some form or other of despotism, such as feudalism
or servitude, or a despotic paternal government; and we have every
reason to believe that it is not possible for humanity to leap
over this transition epoch, and pass at once from pure savagery
to free civilization. The Dutch system attempts to supply this
missing link, and to bring the people on by gradual steps to that
higher civilization, which we (the English) try to force upon
them at once. Our system has always failed. We demoralize and we
extirpate, but we never really civilize. Whether the Dutch system
can permanently succeed is but doubtful, since it may not be
possible to compress the work of ten centuries into one; but at
all events it takes nature as a guide, and is therefore, more
deserving of success, and more likely to succeed, than ours.
There is one point connected with this question which I think the
Missionaries might take up with great physical and moral results.
In this beautiful and healthy country, and with abundance of food
and necessaries, the population does not increase as it ought to
do. I can only impute this to one cause. Infant mortality,
produced by neglect while the mothers are working in the
plantations, and by general ignorance of the conditions of health
in infants. Women all work, as they have always been accustomed
to do. It is no hardship to them, but I believe is often a
pleasure and relaxation. They either take their infants with
them, in which case they leave them in some shady spot on the
ground, going at intervals to give them nourishment, or they
leave them at home in the care of other children too young to
work. Under neither of these circumstances can infants be
properly attended to, and great mortality is the result, keeping
the increase of population far below the rate which the
general prosperity of the country and the universality of
marriage would lead us to expect. This is a matter in which the
Government is directly interested, since it is by the increase of
the population alone that there can be any large and permanent
increase in the production of coffee. The Missionaries should take
up the question because, by inducing married women to confine
themselves to domestic duties, they will decidedly promote a
higher civilization, and directly increase the health and
happiness of the whole community. The people are so docile and
so willing to adopt the manners and customs of Europeans, that
the change might be easily effected by merely showing them that
it was a question of morality and civilization, and an essential
step in their progress towards an equality with their white
rulers.
After a fortnight's stay at Rurúkan, I left that pretty and
interesting village in search of a locality and climate more
productive of birds and insects. I passed the evening with the
Controlleur of Tondano, and the next morning at nine, left in a
small boat for the head of the lake, a distance of about ten
miles. The lower end of the lake is bordered by swamps and
marshes of considerable extent, but a little further on, the hills
come down to the water's edge and give it very much the
appearance of a greet river, the width being about two miles.
At the upper end is the village of Kakas, where I dined with the
head man in a good house like those I have already described;
and then went on to Langówan, four miles distant over a level
plain. This was the place where I had been recommended to stay,
and I accordingly unpacked my baggage and made myself comfortable
in the large house devoted to visitors. I obtained a man to shoot
for me, and another to accompany me the next day to the forest,
where I was in hopes of finding a good collecting ground.
In the morning after breakfast I started off, but found I had
four miles to walk over a wearisome straight road through coffee
plantations before I could get to the forest, and as soon as I
did so ,it came on to rain heavily and did not cease until night.
This distance to walk everyday was too far for any profitable
work, especially when the weather was so uncertain. I therefore
decided at once that I must go further on, until I found someplace
close to or in a forest country. In the afternoon my friend
Mr. Bensneider arrived, together with the Controlleur of the next
district, called Belang, from whom I learned that six miles
further on there was a village called Panghu, which had been
recently formed and had a good deal of forest close to it; and
he promised me the use of a small house if I liked to go there.
The next morning I went to see the hot-springs and mud volcanoes,
for which this place is celebrated. A picturesque path among
plantations and ravines brought us to a beautiful circular basin
about forty feet in diameter, bordered by a calcareous ledge, so
uniform and truly curved, that it looked like a work of art. It
was filled with clear water very near the boiling point, and
emitted clouds of steam with a strong sulphureous odour. It
overflows at one point and forms a little stream of hot water,
which at a hundred yards' distance is still too hot to hold the
hand in. A little further on, in a piece of rough wood, were two
other springs not so regular in outline, but appearing to be much
hotter, as they were in a continual state of active ebullition.
At intervals of a few minutes, a great escape of steam or gas took
place, throwing up a column of water three or four feet high.
We then went to the mud-springs, which are about a mile off, and
are still more curious. On a sloping tract of ground in a slight
hollow is a small lake of liquid mud, with patches of blue, red, or
white, and in many places boiling and bubbling most furiously.
All around on the indurated clay are small wells and craters
full of boiling mud. These seem to be forming continually, a
small hole appearing first, which emits jets of steam and boiling
mud, which upon hardening, forms a little cone with a crater in
the middle. The ground for some distance is very unsafe, as it
is evidently liquid at a small depth, and bends with pressure
like thin ice. At one of the smaller, marginal jets which I
managed to approach, I held my hand to see if it was really as
hot as it looked, when a little drop of mud that spurted on to my
finger scalded like boiling water.
A short distance off, there was a flat bare surface of rock as
smooth and hot as an oven floor, which was evidently an old mud-pool,
dried up and hardened. For hundreds of yards around where
there were banks of reddish and white clay used for whitewash, it
was still so hot close to the surface that the hand could hardly
bear to be held in cracks a few inches deep, and from which arose
a strong sulphureous vapour. I was informed that some years back
a French gentleman who visited these springs ventured too near
the liquid mud, when the crust gave way and he was engulfed in
the horrible caldron.
This evidence of intense heat so near the surface over a large
tract of country was very impressive, and I could hardly divest
myself of the notion that some terrible catastrophe might at any
moment devastate the country. Yet it is probable that all these
apertures are really safety-valves, and that the inequalities of
the resistance of various parts of the earth's crust will always
prevent such an accumulation of force as would be required to
upheave and overwhelm any extensive area. About seven miles west
of this is a volcano which was in eruption about thirty years
before my visit, presenting a magnificent appearance and covering
the surrounding country with showers of ashes. The plains around
the lake formed by the intermingling and decomposition of
volcanic products are of amazing fertility, and with a little
management in the rotation of crops might be kept in continual
cultivation. Rice is now grown on them for three or four years in
succession, when they are left fallow for the same period, after
which rice or maize can be again grown. Good rice produces
thirty-fold, and coffee trees continue bearing abundantly for ten
or fifteen years, without any manure and with scarcely any
cultivation.
I was delayed a day by incessant rain, and then proceeded to
Panghu, which I reached just before the daily rain began at 11
A.M. After leaving the summit level of the lake basin, the road
is carried along the slope of a fine forest ravine. The descent
is a long one, so that I estimated the village to be not more
than 1,500 feet above the sea, yet I found the morning
temperature often 69°, the same as at Tondano at least 600 or 700
feet higher. I was pleased with the appearance of the place,
which had a good deal of forest and wild country around it; and
found prepared for me a little house consisting only of a
verandah and a back room. This was only intended for visitors to
rest in, or to pass a night, but it suited me very well. I was so
unfortunate, however, as to lose both my hunters just at this
time. One had been left at Tondano with fever and diarrhoea, and
the other was attacked at Langówan with inflammation of the
chest, and as his case looked rather bad I had him sent back to
Menado. The people here were all so busy with their rice-harvest,
which was important for them to finish owing to the early rains,
that I could get no one to shoot for me.
During the three weeks that I stayed at Panghu it rained nearly
everyday, either in the afternoon only, or all day long; but
there were generally a few hours' sunshine in the morning, and I
took advantage of these to explore the roads and paths, the rocks
and ravines, in search of insects. These were not very abundant,
yet I saw enough to convince me that the locality was a good one,
had I been there at the beginning instead of at the end of the
dry season. The natives brought me daily a few insects obtained
at the Sagueir palms, including some fine Cetonias and stag-
beetles. Two little boys were very expert with the blowpipe, and
brought me a good many small birds, which they shot with pellets
of clay. Among these was a pretty little flower-pecker of a new
species (Prionochilus aureolimbatus), and several of the
loveliest honeysuckers I had yet seen. My general collection of
birds was, however, almost at a standstill; for though I at
length obtained a man to shoot for me, he was not good for much,
and seldom brought me more than one bird a day. The best thing he
shot was the large and rare fruit-pigeon peculiar to Northern
Celebes (Carpophaga forsteni), which I had long been seeking.
I was myself very successful in one beautiful group of insects,
the tiger-beetles, which seem more abundant and varied here than
anywhere else in the Archipelago. I first met with them on a
cutting in the road, where a hard clayey bank was partially
overgrown with mosses and small ferns. Here, I found running
about, a small olive-green species which never took flight; and
more rarely, a fine purplish black wingless insect, which was
always found motionless in crevices, and was therefore, probably
nocturnal. It appeared to me to form a new genus. About the roads
in the forest, I found the large and handsome Cicindela heros,
which I had before obtained sparingly at Macassar; but it was in
the mountain torrent of the ravine itself that I got my finest
things. 0n dead trunks overhanging the water and on the banks and
foliage, I obtained three very pretty species of Cicindela, quite
distinct in size, form, and colour, but having an almost
identical pattern of pale spots. I also found a single specimen
of a most curious species with very long antennae. But my finest
discovery here was the Cicindela gloriosa, which I found on mossy
stones just rising above the water. After obtaining my first
specimen of this elegant insect, I used to walk up the stream,
watching carefully every moss-covered rock and stone. It was
rather shy, and would often lead me on a long chase from stone to
stone, becoming invisible every time it settled on the damp moss,
owing to its rich velvety green colour. On some days I could
only catch a few glimpses of it; on others I got a single
specimen; and on a few occasions two, but never without a more or
less active pursuit. This and several other species I never saw
but in this one ravine.
Among the people here I saw specimens of several types, which,
with the peculiarities of the languages, gives me some notion of
their probable origin. A striking illustration of the low state
of civilization of these people, until quite recently, is to be
found in the great diversity of their languages. Villages three
or four miles apart have separate dialects, and each group of
three or four such villages has a distinct language quite
unintelligible to all the rest; so that, until the recent
introduction of Malay by the Missionaries, there must have been a
bar to all free communication. These languages offer many
peculiarities. They contain a Celebes-Malay element and a Papuan
element, along with some radical peculiarities found also in the
languages of the Siau and Sanguir islands further north, and
therefore, probably derived from the Philippine Islands. Physical
characteristics correspond. There are some of the less civilized
tribes which have semi-Papuan features and hair, while in some
villages the true Celebes or Bugis physiognomy prevails. The
plateau of Tondano is chiefly inhabited by people nearly as white
as the Chinese, and with very pleasing semi-European features.
The people of Siau and Sanguir much resemble these, and I believe
them to be perhaps immigrants from some of the islands of North
Polynesia. The Papuan type will represent the remnant of the
aborigines, while those of the Bugis character show the extension
northward of the superior Malay races.
As I was wasting valuable time at Panghu, owing to the bad weather
and the illness of my hunters, I returned to Menado after a stay
of three weeks. Here I had a little touch of fever, and what with
drying and packing all of my collections and getting fresh
servants, it was a fortnight before I was again ready to start. I
now went eastward over an undulating country skirting the great
volcano of Klabat, to a village called Lempias, situated close to
the extensive forest that covers the lower slopes of that
mountain. My baggage was carried from village to village by
relays of men; and as each change involved some delay, I did not
reach my destination (a distance of eighteen miles) until sunset.
I was wet through, and had to wait for an hour in an uncomfortable
state until the first installment of my baggage arrived, which
luckily contained my clothes, while the rest did not come in until
midnight.
This being the district inhabited by that singular annual the
Babirusa (Hog-deer), I inquired about skulls and soon obtained
several in tolerable condition, as well as a fine one of the rare
and curious "Sapiutan" (Anoa depressicornis. Of this animal I had
seen two living specimens at Menado, and was surprised at their
great resemblance to small cattle, or still more to the Eland of
South Africa. Their Malay name signifies "forest ox," and they
differ from very small highbred oxen principally by the low-
hanging dewlap, and straight, pointed horns which slope back over
the neck. I did not find the forest here so rich in insects as I
had expected, and my hunters got me very few birds, but what they
did obtain were very interesting. Among these were the rare
forest Kingfisher (Cittura cyanotis), a small new species of
Megapodius, and one specimen of the large and interesting Maleo
(Megacephalon rubripes), to obtain which was one of my chief
reasons for visiting this district. Getting no more, however,
after ten days' search, I removed to Licoupang, at the extremity
of the peninsula, a place celebrated for these birds, as well as
for the Babirusa and Sapiutan. I found here Mr. Goldmann, the
eldest son of the Governor of the Moluccas, who was
superintending the establishment of some Government salt-works.
This was a better locality, and I obtained some fine butterflies
and very good birds, among which was one more specimen of the
rare ground dove (Phlegaenas tristigmata), which I had first
obtained near the Maros waterfall in South Celebes.
Hearing what I was particularly in search of, Mr. Goldmann kindly
offered to make a hunting-party to the place where the "Maleos"
are most abundant, a remote and uninhabited sea-beach about
twenty miles distant. The climate here was quite different from
that on the mountains; not a drop of rain having fallen for four
months; so I made arrangements to stay on the beach a week, in
order to secure a good number of specimens. We went partly by
boat and partly through the forest, accompanied by the Major or
head-man of Licoupang, with a dozen natives and about twenty
dogs. On the way they caught a young Sapi-utan and five wild
pigs. Of the former I preserved the head. This animal is entirely
confined to the remote mountain forests of Celebes and one or two
adjacent islands which form part of the same group. In the adults
the head is black, with a white mark over each eye, one on each
cheek and another on the throat. The horns are very smooth and
sharp when young, but become thicker and ridged at the bottom
with age. Most naturalists consider this curious animal to be a
small ox, but from the character of the horns, the fine coat of
hair and the descending dewlap, it seemed closely to approach the
antelopes.
Arrived at our destination, we built a but and prepared for a stay
of some days--I to shoot and skin "Maleos", and Mr. Goldmann and
the Major to hunt wild pigs, Babirusa, and Sapi-utan. The place is
situated in the large bay between the islands of Limbe and Banca,
and consists of steep beach more than a mile in length, of deep
loose and coarse black volcanic sand (or rather gravel), very
fatiguing to walk over. It is bounded at each extremity by a
small river with hilly ground beyond, while the forest behind
the beach itself is tolerably level and its growth stunted. We
probably have here an ancient lava stream from the Klabat
volcano, which has flowed down a valley into the sea, and the
decomposition of which has formed the loose black sand. In
confirmation of this view, it may be mentioned that the beaches
beyond the small rivers in both directions are of white sand.
It is in this loose, hot, black sand that those singular birds,
the "Maleos" deposit their eggs. In the months of August and
September, when there is little or no rain, they come down in
pairs from the interior to this or to one or two other favourite
spots, and scratch holes three or four feet deep, just above
high-water mark, where the female deposits a single large egg,
which she covers over with about a foot of sand--and then returns
to the forest. At the end of ten or twelve days she comes again
to the same spot to lay another egg, and each female bird is
supposed to lay six or eight eggs during the season. The male
assists the female in making the hole, coming down and returning
with her. The appearance of the bird when walking on the beach is
very handsome. The glossy black and rosy white of the plumage,
the helmeted head and elevated tail, like that of the common
fowl, give a striking character, which their stately and somewhat
sedate walk renders still more remarkable. There is hardly any
difference between the sexes, except that the casque or bonnet at
the back of the head and the tubercles at the nostrils are a
little larger, and the beautiful rosy salmon colour a little
deeper in the male bird; but the difference is so slight that it
is not always possible to tell a male from a female without
dissection. They run quickly, but when shot at or suddenly
disturbed, take wing with a heavy noisy flight to some neighbouring
tree, where they settle on a low branch; and, they probably roost
at night in a similar situation. Many birds lay in the same hole,
for a dozen eggs are often found together; and these are so large
that it is not possible for the body of the bird to contain more
than one fully-developed egg at the same time. In all the female
birds which I shot, none of the eggs besides the one large one
exceeded the size of peas, and there were only eight or nine of
these, which is probably the extreme number a bird can lay in one
season.
Every year the natives come for fifty miles round to obtain these
eggs, which are esteemed as a great delicacy, and when quite fresh,
are indeed delicious. They are richer than hens' eggs and of a
finer favour, and each one completely fills an ordinary teacup,
and forms with bread or rice a very good meal. The colour of the
shell is a pale brick red, or very rarely pure white. They are
elongate and very slightly smaller at one end, from four to four
and a half inches long by two and a quarter or two and a half
wide.
After the eggs are deposited in the sand, they are no further
cared for by the mother. The young birds, upon breaking the shell,
work their way up through the sand and run off at once to the
forest; and I was assured by Mr. Duivenboden of Ternate, that
they can fly the very day they are hatched. He had taken some
eggs on board his schooner which hatched during the night, and in
the morning the little birds flew readily across the cabin.
Considering the great distances the birds come to deposit the
eggs in a proper situation (often ten or fifteen miles) it seems
extraordinary that they should take no further care of them. It
is, however, quite certain that they neither do nor can watch
them. The eggs being deposited by a number of hens in succession
in the same hole, would render it impossible for each to
distinguish its own; and the food necessary for such large birds
(consisting entirely of fallen fruits) can only be obtained by
roaming over an extensive district, so that if the numbers of
birds which come down to this single beach in the breeding
season, amounting to many hundreds, were obliged to remain in the
vicinity, many would perish of hunger.
In the structure of the feet of this bird, we may detect a cause
for its departing from the habits of its nearest allies, the
Megapodii and Talegalli, which heap up earth, leaves, stones, and
sticks into a huge mound, in which they bury their eggs. The feet
of the Maleo are not nearly so large or strong in proportion as
in these birds, while its claws are short and straight instead of
being long and much curved. The toes are, however, strongly
webbed at the base, forming a broad powerful foot, which, with
the rather long leg, is well adapted to scratch away the loose
sand (which flies up in a perfect shower when the birds are at
work), but which could not without much labour accumulate the
heaps of miscellaneous rubbish, which the large grasping feet of
the Megapodius bring together with ease.
We may also, I think, see in the peculiar organization of the
entire family of the Megapodidae or Brush Turkeys, a reason why
they depart so widely from the usual habits of the Class of
birds. Each egg being so large as entirely to fill up the
abdominal cavity and with difficulty pass the walls of the
pelvis, a considerable interval is required before the successive
eggs can be matured (the natives say about thirteen days). Each
bird lays six or eight eggs or even more each season, so that
between the first and last there may be an interval of two or
three months. Now, if these eggs were hatched in the ordinary
way, either the parents must keep sitting continually for this
long period, or if they only began to sit after the last egg
was deposited, the first would be exposed to injury by the
climate, or to destruction by the large lizards, snakes, or other
animals which abound in the district; because such large birds
must roam about a good deal in search of food. Here then we seem
to have a case in which the habits of a bird may be directly
traced to its exceptional organization; for it will hardly be
maintained that this abnormal structure and peculiar food were
given to the Megapodidae in order that they might not exhibit
that parental affection, or possess those domestic instincts so
general in the Class of birds, and which so much excite our admiration.
It has generally been the custom of writers on Natural History
to take the habits and instincts of animals as fixed points, and
to consider their structure and organization, as specially adapted,
to be in accordance with these. This assumption is however an
arbitrary one, and has the bad effect of stifling inquiry into
the nature and causes of "instincts and habits," treating them as
directly due to a "first cause," and therefore, incomprehensible
to us. I believe that a careful consideration of the structure of
a species, and of the peculiar physical and organic conditions by
which it is surrounded, or has been surrounded in past ages, will
often, as in this case, throw much light on the origin of its
habits and instincts. These again, combined with changes in
external conditions, react upon structure, and by means of
"variation" and "natural selection", both are kept in harmony.
My friends remained three days, and got plenty of wild pigs and
two Anoas, but the latter were much injured by the dogs, and I
could only preserve the heads. A grand hunt which we attempted on
the third day failed, owing to bad management in driving in the
game, and we waited for five hours perched on platforms in trees
without getting a shot, although we had been assured that pigs,
Babirusas, and Anóas would rush past us in dozens. I myself, with
two men, stayed three days longer to get more specimens of the
Maleos, and succeeded in preserving twenty-six very fine ones--
the flesh and eggs of which supplied us with abundance of good
food.
The Major sent a boat, as he had promised, to take home my
baggage, while I walked through the forest with my two boys and a
guide, about fourteen miles. For the first half of the distance
there was no path, and we had often to cut our way through
tangled rattans or thickets of bamboo. In some of our turnings to
find the most practicable route, I expressed my fear that we were
losing our way, as the sun being vertical, I could see no possible
clue to the right direction. My conductors, however, laughed at
the idea, which they seemed to consider quite ludicrous; and sure
enough, about half way, we suddenly encountered a little hut
where people from Licoupang came to hunt and smoke wild pigs. My
guide told me he had never before traversed the forest between
these two points; and this is what is considered by some
travellers as one of the savage "instincts," whereas it is merely
the result of wide general knowledge. The man knew the topography
of the whole district; the slope of the land, the direction of
the streams, the belts of bamboo or rattan, and many other
indications of locality and direction; and he was thus enabled to
hit straight upon the hut, in the vicinity of which he had often
hunted. In a forest of which he knew nothing, he would be quite
as much at a loss as a European. Thus it is, I am convinced, with
all the wonderful accounts of Indians finding their way through
trackless forests to definite points; they may never have passed
straight between the two particular points before, but they are
well acquainted with the vicinity of both, and have such a
general knowledge of the whole country, its water system, its
soil and its vegetation, that as they approach the point they are
to reach, many easily-recognised indications enable them to hit
upon it with certainty.
The chief feature of this forest was the abundance of rattan
palms hanging from the trees, and turning and twisting about on
the ground, often in inextricable confusion. One wonders at first
how they can get into such queer shapes; but it is evidently
caused by the decay and fall of the trees up which they have
first climbed, after which they grow along the ground until they
meet with another trunk up which to ascend. A tangled mass of
twisted living rattan, is therefore, a sign that at some former
period a large tree has fallen there, though there may be not the
slightest vestige of it left. The rattan seems to have unlimited
powers of growth, and a single plant may moult up several trees
in succession, and thus reach the enormous length they are said
sometimes to attain. They much improve the appearance of a forest
as seen from the coast; for they vary the otherwise monotonous
tree-tops with feathery crowns of leaves rising clear above them,
and each terminated by an erect leafy spike like a lightning-
conductor.
The other most interesting object in the forest was a beautiful
palm, whose perfectly smooth and cylindrical stem rises erect to
more than a hundred feet high, with a thickness of only eight or
ten inches; while the fan-shaped leaves which compose its crown,
are almost complete circles of six or eight feet diameter, borne
aloft on long and slender petioles, and beautifully toothed round
the edge by the extremities of the leaflets, which are separated
only for a few inches from the circumference. It is probably the
Livistona rotundifolia of botanists, and is the most complete and
beautiful fan-leaf I have ever seen, serving admirably for folding
into water-buckets and impromptu baskets, as well as for thatching
and other purposes.
A few days afterwards I returned to Menado on horse-back, sending
my baggage around by sea; and had just time to pack up all my
collections to go by the next mail steamer to Amboyna. I will now
devote a few pages to an account of the chief peculiarities of
the Zoology of Celebes, and its relation to that of the
surrounding countries.
CHAPTER XVIII.
NATURAL HISTORY OF CELEBES.
THE position of Celebes is the most central in the Archipelago.
Immediately to the north are the Philippine islands; on the west
is Borneo; on the east are the Molucca islands; and on the south
is the Timor group--and it is on all sides so connected with
these islands by its own satellites, by small islets, and by
coral reefs, that neither by inspection on the map nor by actual
observation around its coast, is it possible to determine
accurately which should be grouped with it, and which with the
surrounding districts. Such being the case, we should naturally
expect to find that the productions of this central island in
some degree represented the richness and variety of the whole
Archipelago, while we should not expect much individuality in a
country, so situated, that it would seem as if it were pre-
eminently fitted to receive stragglers and immigrants from all
around.
As so often happens in nature, however, the fact turns out to be
just the reverse of what we should have expected; and an
examination of its animal productions shows Celebes to be at
once the poorest in the number of its species, and the most
isolated in the character of its productions, of all the great
islands in the Archipelago. With its attendant islets it spreads
over an extent of sea hardly inferior in length and breadth to
that occupied by Borneo, while its actual land area is nearly
double that of Java; yet its Mammalia and terrestrial birds
number scarcely more than half the species found in the last-
named island. Its position is such that it could receive
immigrants from every side more readily than Java, yet in
proportion to the species which inhabit it, far fewer seem derived
from other islands, while far more are altogether peculiar to it;
and a considerable number of its animal forms are so remarkable,
as to find no close allies in any other part of the world. I now
propose to examine the best known groups of Celebesian animals in
some detail, to study their relations to those of other islands,
and to call attention to the many points of interest which they
suggest.
We know far more of the birds of Celebes than we do of any other
group of animals. No less than 191 species have been discovered,
and though no doubt, many more wading and swimming birds have to
be added; yet the list of land birds, 144 in number, and which
for our present purpose are much the most important, must be very
nearly complete. I myself assiduously collected birds in Celebes
for nearly ten months, and my assistant, Mr. Allen, spent two
months in the Sula islands. The Dutch naturalist Forsten spent
two years in Northern Celebes (twenty years before my visit), and
collections of birds had also been sent to Holland from Macassar.
The French ship of discovery, L'Astrolabe, also touched at Menado
and procured collections. Since my return home, the Dutch
naturalists Rosenberg and Bernstein have made extensive
collections both in North Celebes and in the Sula islands; yet
all their researches combined have only added eight species of
land birds to those forming part of my own collection--a fact
which renders it almost certain that there are very few more to
discover.
Besides Salayer and Boutong on the south, with Peling and Bungay
on the east, the three islands of the Sula (or Zula) Archipelago
also belong zoologically to Celebes, although their position is
such that it would seem more natural to group them with the
Moluccas. About 48 land birds are now known from the Sula group,
and if we reject from these, five species which have a wide range
over the Archipelago, the remainder are much more characteristic
of Celebes than of the Moluccas. Thirty-one species are identical
with those of the former island, and four are representatives of
Celebes forms, while only eleven are Moluccan species, and two
more representatives.
But although the Sula islands belong to Celebes, they are so
close to Bouru and the southern islands of the Gilolo group, that
several purely Moluccan forms have migrated there, which are
quite unknown to the island of Celebes itself; the whole thirteen
Moluccan species being in this category, thus adding to the
productions of Celebes a foreign element which does not really
belong to it. In studying the peculiarities of the Celebesian
fauna, it will therefore be well to consider only the productions
of the main island.
The number of land birds in the island of Celebes is 128, and
from these we may, as before, strike out a small number of
species which roam over the whole Archipelago (often from India
to the Pacific), and which therefore only serve to disguise the
peculiarities of individual islands. These are 20 in number, and
leave 108 species which we may consider as more especially
characteristic of the island. On accurately comparing these with
the birds of all the surrounding countries, we find that only
nine extend into the islands westward, and nineteen into the
islands eastward, while no less than 80 are entirely confined to
the Celebesian fauna--a degree of individuality which,
considering the situation of the island, is hardly to be equalled
in any other part of the world. If we still more closely examine
these 80 species, we shall be struck by the many peculiarities of
structure they present, and by the curious affinities with
distant parts of the world which many of them seem to indicate.
These points are of so much interest and importance that it will
be necessary to pass in review all those species which are
peculiar to the island, and to call attention to whatever is most
worthy of remark.
Six species of the Hawk tribe are peculiar to Celebes; three of
these are very distinct from allied birds which range over all
India to Java and Borneo, and which thus seem to be suddenly
changed on entering Celebes. Another (Accipiter trinotatus) is a
beautiful hawk, with elegant rows of large round white spots on
the tail, rendering it very conspicuous and quite different from
any other known bird of the family. Three owls are also peculiar;
and one, a barn owl (Strix rosenbergii), is very much larger and
stronger than its ally Strix javanica, which ranges from India
through all the islands as far as Lombock.
Of the ten Parrots found in Celebes, eight are peculiar. Among
them are two species of the singular raquet-tailed parrots
forming the genus Prioniturus, and which are characterised by
possessing two long spoon-shaped feathers in the tail. Two allied
species are found in the adjacent island of Mindanao, one of the
Philippines, and this form of tail is found in no other parrots
in the whole world. A small species of Lorikeet (Trichoglossus
flavoviridis) seems to have its nearest ally in Australia.
The three Woodpeckers which inhabit the island are all peculiar,
and are allied to species found in Java and Borneo, although very
different from them all.
Among the three peculiar Cuckoos, two are very remarkable.
Phoenicophaus callirhynchus is the largest and handsomest species
of its genus, and is distinguished by the three colours of its
beak, bright yellow, red, and black. Eudynamis melanorynchus
differs from all its allies in having a jet-black bill, whereas
the other species of the genus always have it green, yellow, or
reddish.
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